Running the Marathon: A Conversation with Tom Grilk, Retired President and CEO of the Boston Athletic Association

Running the Marathon: A Conversation with Tom Grilk

Tom Grilk is a lawyer who began his career in private practice at a major Boston law firm, then worked as in-house counsel at several area tech companies, and, from 2011 until 2022, served as President and CEO of the Boston Athletic Association, the non-profit organization that runs the Boston Marathon. Tom was in that position on April 15, 2013, the day that two bombs exploded at the marathon, immediately killing three people and injuring many more.  

In this episode of Higher Callings, Tom and I discuss his career path, the work and mission of the BAA, the history of the Boston Marathon, and the events of that tragic day. His story of how, in 2013, lives were saved by the emergency preparedness of the BAA and all of the agencies, hospitals, healthcare teams, and law enforcement officials responsible for public safety at the event, as well as by the heroics of strangers and passersby who ran towards danger to help the wounded, is both fascinating and inspiring. It’s a lesson in the importance of emergency preparedness, and in the virtues of kindness and self-sacrifice and the nobility of the human spirit.

Tom's essay published in Boston Magazine on the 10th anniversary of the 2013 Marathon bombing can be found here.

If you have enjoyed the Higher Callings podcast, you might also enjoy Don's Substack Newsletter, Reflections of a Boston Lawyer, which you can find here: https://donaldfrederico.substack.com/

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 3:48 Tom's Legal Career
• 11:38 Tom's Early Involvement With the Boston Marathon and the BAA
• 17:32 The Boston Athletic Association
• 19:50 The Boston Marathon
• 31:41 The BAA's Advances in Community Support
• 39:42 "In Boston, everyone owns the Marathon."
• 47:08 The 2013 Marathon Bombing
• 1:10:41 Tom's Parting Words of Wisdom

Transcript

Running the Marathon: A Conversation with Tom Grilk

Don: Tom Grilk is a lawyer who began his career in private practice at a major Boston law firm, then worked as in-house counsel at several area tech companies, and from 2011 until 2022, served as President and CEO of the Boston Athletic Association, the non-profit organization that runs the Boston Marathon. Tom was in that position on April 15th, 2013, the day that two bombs exploded at the marathon, immediately killing three people and injuring many more.

In this episode of Higher Callings, Tom and I discuss his career path, the work and mission of the BAA, the history of the Boston Marathon, and the events of that tragic day. His story of how in 2013 lives were saved by the emergency preparedness of the BAA and all the agencies, hospitals, healthcare teams, and law enforcement officials responsible for public safety at the event, as well as by the heroics of strangers and passersby who ran towards danger to help the wounded, is both fascinating and inspiring. It's a lesson in the importance of emergency preparedness and in the virtues of kindness and self-sacrifice and the nobility of the human spirit. 

[Excerpt]:

Don: So when you were told that there had been a bombing, what did you do?

Tom: I tried to go outside, but I couldn't do that.

Don: Because people wouldn't let you go outside?

Tom: That's right. The police were trying to get people out of there and they certainly didn't want anyone else coming in. Who knew what could happen? There were two explosions, would there be three, five, ten? So people had to be stopped from going in, cell phone service had to be turned off so there could not be a remote detonation.

Don: Yeah, and that's a point, I think as we go through this, for people to remember. That we now know, in retrospect, that there were two bombs. At the time, you didn't know how many bombs there were. You may have known that two had gone off, but you didn't know if there were going to be more. 

Tom: It was scarier yet, because the police were then and federal government and FBI people were rapidly scrutinizing the area to find backpacks that had been left behind, that were just sitting there, and in some cases that they were sufficiently suspicious, those would be exploded. So there was still the sound of explosions going on, even though they weren't terrorist bombs. So it's quite an atmosphere. 

Don: I'm Don Frederico, and this is Higher Callings. 

I'm with Tom Grilk, an attorney I've known for many years who left the practice of law at one point to become President of the Boston Athletic Association and Executive Director of the Boston Marathon as I understand it.

Did I get that right? 

Tom: It's certainly close enough for this, yeah. 

Don: Okay. I like that. That's a good standard we'll apply to this podcast going forward. It's close enough for this. 

Tom: It's achievable.

Don: Good. 

Tom, thank you for joining me. You and I have known each other a long time. It's funny, we practiced in the same law firm, but I think you left that law firm a few months before I started, which probably means you got wind of me coming and decided there must be a better place to work. But we've also known each other through alumni from the law firm and have been at Red Sox games together and all of that. 

What I want to do is explore a little bit about your career path and talk about working for an organization like the BAA, and then we're going to talk about the Boston Marathon, including, but not only, talk about the Boston Marathon that was run on April 15th of 2013 which will live in infamy as the one where there was a bombing, and you were in charge of the Boston Marathon at that time.

But let's just start. Tell our listeners a little bit about yourself. Where did you come from? What's been your career path? And I'll interrupt with questions as you go. 

Tom: Searing inquiry is welcome. 

I live in Lynnfield, Massachusetts right now, north of Boston. I was born in Wakefield, Massachusetts. So, while some people have gone a great long distance in their lives, I've gone about four miles. Went to Wakefield High School. Off to Cornell University. Later on the University of Michigan Law School. And then drifted over to the law firm then known as Hale and Dorr, where I had actually started as a messenger.

I got out of the army a little sooner than expected, and before I could head off to law school, I had some months to fill up. And a friend who ultimately became the Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court said he'd just been working as a messenger, and perhaps the standards had fallen far enough that I could too.

So I did, which got me acquainted with a great many of the lawyers there. And occasionally I would be asked to do things beyond just being a messenger, one of which was a big problem once when I was taking something to Washington. I called my college roommate's father, who was an esteemed lawyer in Michigan. And he said, "You're at the SEC, do this." So I did, which made me a hero. I never disclosed the fact that I hadn't thought it up myself.

And when the time came to get out of law school, the people at the firm said "We don't take a lot of people from Michigan, or we haven't anyway, but we know you and you've got to go to work someplace. So why don't you come here? Which I did, and remained for the better part of perhaps eight years. Terrific experience. Wonderful people. And in those days, when you showed up, you worked across a variety of areas of practice. So a very nice, broad, and deep introduction to the practice of law. 

And then after those first years, left to go in-house. And as a great many people know, the practice of law in a law firm environment, and in those days it was mostly corporate for me, can be very intense. And it seemed to me that I had a choice to make between what I was doing professionally and what I was doing personally. 

Don: Right. 

Tom: And whether my about-to-be beloved spouse, with whom I'd been living for about seven years, was going to hang in there or not. And I decided the right thing was to do something that provided just a little more opportunity for personal things. 

So I left, and went to what was then a quite large computer systems company located near Boston called Digital Equipment Corporation, which was then the second largest computer company in the world. And did a whole variety of things there, beginning with looking after their litigation and then dealing with business affairs, mergers, acquisitions. Spent three years living in Tokyo, engaged in trade matters in the mid-eighties at the time of the hegemony of Japan, Inc. And then came back at a number two level in the law department at Digital. And enjoyed it greatly. But the company did not do a perfect job of recognizing evolution in technology and at one point, I suddenly had to go to New York one weekend and sell the whole enterprise. And so we did. 

Don: And for people who aren't old enough to remember Digital or weren't living in Massachusetts and familiar with it, it was a mammoth computer company. It was one of the big ones. Obviously, I'm not speaking technically. I don't have that background. But I just know that Digital Equipment was one of the biggest employers in Massachusetts, as I recall. Is that right, Tom? 

Tom: That's right. At the very peak, worldwide, there were 140,000 or so employees. So it provided a great array of things to do. And a lot of experience on the business side as well. I became particularly allied with the company's services organization, which was the part that fared the best as the world of technology changed. But it required a great deal of change management to take 70,000 people and change their orientation from fixing machines that were produced by Digital and therefore they had the advantage of having all of the proprietary equipment, to moving over to providing service to machines made by anybody and providing service in the area of computer services of various types.

So it meant being in the middle of a very large change that worked quite well and playing a fairly substantial role in the management of it. And so it provided much more of a business world introduction. 

Don: Great. So how long were you at Digital Equipment?

Tom: I was at Digital Equipment for the better part of 20 years, the last year and a half or two actually with Compaq Computer Corporation, which had acquired Digital. So I stuck around there for a little while because it was economically advantageous to stay, as happens in those things. 

Don: And always in the legal department at that point, or on the business side? 

Tom: Yeah, that was always my landing point. Increasingly I was more and more on the business side of things, got involved in communications a lot, would host company-wide video sessions, large group meetings, go and be the emcee at large meetings around the world. That was nothing but fun. 

Don: Good. And you had one or two other jobs in technology, didn't you? After Digital and Compaq? 

Tom: That's right. After I finished the period of time during which it had been advantageously and economically good for me to stick around at Compaq, I then spent two years as General Counsel for a company called Teradyne in Boston. Still there. A semiconductor test equipment company. Which was a wonderful place, still is and people that I liked very much. Culturally, we were different. It was very much an engineering driven enterprise that focused heavily on the procedures of Total Quality Management, all of which was really good for critical thinking.

But you would get through a problem and something would be successful, and I'd want to get down to the tavern and celebrate, and other people would wonder why anyone would want to do that. What problem would that solve? 

Don: Yeah. 

Tom: And then was contacted by somebody about a company that I did not know called Brooks Automation, another semiconductor-related enterprise making largely robotics for the semiconductor world and some other things, and went there to be General Counsel for them and did that for eight years.

Don: So where are we? Are we in the 1990s now? 

Tom: We have just gotten to, let's see, 2000 I went to Teradyne. In 2002 to Brooks Automation. 

Don: Okay. Now, at some point in time when you were doing all these jobs for legal departments of tech companies you also started becoming active in the Boston Marathon. Can you tell me how that got started? 

Tom: Yes. And as so often happens in the world of everything, entropy and randomness played a great deal of a role in all of that. 

For me, I found that the practice of law in the law firm environment was somewhat stress inducing. And one, in order to deal with that, could either spend time at the two very jolly taverns near where we lived in the Back Bay, the Elliott Lounge and the Bull and Finch, which became Cheers, or one could fall back on something else.

And for me, exercise was it. So I would go out and run for exercise, but to manage stress, I had never been a runner, but it was good for that. In the course of that, we had a messenger at the law firm who had been a collegiate runner and who also was the, he was a collegiate runner and very much involved in track and field running.He was a track and field race announcer, that sort of thing. 

So I began running with him along with a few colleagues from Hale and Dorr. And with that, because he knew really good runners, I became connected with some of the people in Boston who were part of something called the Greater Boston Track Club, which was about the third best country in the world at the marathon in those days with competitors such as Bill Rogers, a four time Boston Marathon winner, Alberto Salazar, Boston and New York winner, world record holder, Greg Meyer, Boston Marathon champion, a bunch of others.

And in running with them I learned that although they were spectacular competitors, if you were a U.S. athlete who wanted to compete internationally, you had to be an amateur. But if you were an amateur, you couldn't really afford to compete with subsidized athletes from abroad. And so I would help them, just as a friend, to find ways to make money that would not run afoul of the then-existing amateurism standards. 

So that got me closer to them. And then for this group, the Greater Boston Track Club, to raise money I started a road race in Boston to generate money for them, which was quite successful. And so was then seen as somebody in the then quite small world of running as somebody who knew what to do to put races together. As a runner, I was still nothing special. I would struggle to qualify for the Boston Marathon that my friends were winning. 

Don: Yeah. You were running with some pretty elite runners. 

Tom: Yeah. Yeah. Their best times were something like 2:09 and mine was 2:49. So I was like three towns behind them, something like that.

Don: That's still pretty darn good for most of us. 

Tom: It was good enough for me. It was enough to qualify. 

And then in 1979, for the first time, the BAA, the Boston Athletic Association, which organizes the Boston Marathon, decided to have a finish line announcer. I guess that was in ‘78. And the person who did it was this law firm messenger of ours who was a track meet announcer, along with my wife, Nancy Frederick, who was a track coach at Wakefield High School, where she was a teacher, having come from the University of Michigan and winding up at the school I went to quite by accident. 

They did it that year. And the following year, Larry Newman, the race announcer, wanted to run and I had hurt myself or something and couldn't run. So we traded places, and starting in 1979, I was the Boston Marathon finish line announcer. And did that for the next 35 years or so. 

Don: What does that mean? What do you do? For people who haven't been at the finish line, what are you doing? 

Tom: For one thing, not running. It was a whole lot easier than that, and you could make fun of all the people you knew who were always faster than you were when they went by.

Initially, it was just to announce to the people at the finish, the spectators, who the finishers were. But they also had no other way to know what was going on. There was no internet. There was no way to follow on radio or TV very much. So I would talk about it more in a play-by-play sort of way -- Who's running? What are their capabilities at a certain point in the race? Whose particular skills would be helpful? -- and talk about what was going on.

Don: Did you have to become an expert on the various runners each year? 

Tom: One would have to prepare, yeah. But preparation was fun. And sometimes it was people you were running with or people who came into Boston to train on the course. So it was a very enjoyable circumstance, very much a who-gets-to-do-this sort of experience.

All of that got me connected more to the Boston Athletic Association. The whole announcing thing came along because the Prudential Insurance Company, which then supported the marathon, wanted somebody to do that. And so I did it more for them. And for two or three years, I'd keep going back and say, "Gee, can I come back and do it again, huh?" And then after a while I came to know the people at the Boston Athletic Association.

Even when we moved abroad from '84 to '87, living in Tokyo, there would be a reason that I would have to come back to the States each year in April and could keep doing it. And I think while I was living overseas, became a member of the BAA, then later a member of the Board of Governors, which is what you call the Board of Directors in an ancient enterprise. And eventually, after a while, getting out to about 2003, became what was called the President, which is really the outside Board Chair, but technically the chief executive under the then bylaws. 

Don: So tell us a little bit about the Boston Athletic Association. What is it? How has it changed over time? What does it do? What's its mission? I know mission is very important to you. 

Tom: The Boston Athletic Association goes back to 1887. It was established in a manner very akin to a great many privileged white male athletic clubs of the time. Think of the New York Athletic Club as an example, the places with very elaborate buildings and lots of different activities. The Boston Athletic Association had a building located on Exeter Street in the Back Bay in Boston. And there were lots of what were then good indoor activities that one could engage in, gymnastics and all kinds of fitness things. The mission of the BAA going all the way back to 1887 was in effect to promote health and fitness. It was a public charity, but membership was pretty much male. 

But there were also other facilities for rowing, for equestrian, for shooting. There was even a golf course that still exists that I played at as a child. It's called Unicorn Golf Club in Stoneham, Massachusetts. The logo of the BAA is a unicorn. I never made the connection that it was the residue of the BAA. 

The BAA had gone bankrupt at the time of the recession in the 1930s. And by the time you get to the 60s and 70s, all that was left was one indoor track meet in the Boston Garden, which ended in 1969, and the Boston Marathon.

And so the BAA pretty much put on the Boston Marathon. The Board of Governors, by that point, was really just the race committee. And it was a fairly loosely organized enterprise that put on the marathon and not a great deal else.

Don: And what year did you say you became president? 

Tom: I took over in that role in 2003.

Don: Now, at the time, was that a full-time position and was it a paid position? You were still practicing law with the companies you were inhouse with. 

Tom: Yeah, that's right. The bylaws had finally been changed. It took quite a while. And now that position is the role of board chair, a traditional outside board chair, not denominated as Chief Executive Officer. That was really a holdover from before. But it did give one an element of control where that seemed important. 

The Boston Marathon had come under some considerable public criticism, especially from runners, because as you get into the 70s and 80s, the level of services for runners was very modest. The first one that I ran was in 1976, when it was a hundred degrees at the start. So doing it at all was silly. But there were no fluid stations along the way to take care of people. There was a sign on the front of the press bus that said "Hose the runners." That was it. 

A few of us a couple of years later were asked to go and meet with Prudential, who as I had said before, had a lot to do with helping to support the BAA and organizing the marathon. It was me and a Boston Globe sports writer, Bill Rogers, a Boston Marathon champion, and a famous Boston bartender. And we were all summoned to talk about what should happen to fix the Boston Marathon. 

And changes began to be made. As you get into the 1980s, then Boston Mayor Ray Flynn said that the Boston Marathon did not meet the standards that it should. And unless the Boston Athletic Association did a better job, then the race could go to somebody else. 

One of the noteworthy things about a road race, even something as major as the Boston Marathon, is that unlike most professional sporting events, the organizer doesn't own the stadium. It's not the Red Sox or the Patriots that have their own fields. You're running down public streets and you can only do it for so long as you get the parade permit. And if it's given to somebody else, you're out. Changes had to be made, and the biggest change was the advent of sponsorship.

There had never been sponsors. It was seen as a violation of the code of amateurism. It felt a little bit like the movie "Chariots of Fire," for those who are familiar with that, about not having professional coaches in the Olympics in the 1920s. And John Hancock came along, largely in the person of their then head of marketing, David D'Alessandro, later the CEO.

Don: Right. 

Tom: That really stepped in and provided substantial funds for the organization, but also a very high degree of organizational assistance. The BAA was still in charge, but John Hancock came in and helped make many of the arrangements. Made all of the media arrangements. Provided other services. That sort of thing. And also brought with it prize money at a level not really seen in any other world marathons at that time. And by then the rules involving running and earning money had changed. There were a few of us who had gotten together to challenge that. And by that time runners could earn whatever they got. They could receive prize money without any risk or sanction. 

Don: When you got started running marathons in the 1970s, was it still at that time all male? 

Tom: No. That changed at the very beginning of the 1970s. It might have been in the late 60s. But it had been all male, and then starting in about 1966, I think Roberta Gibb, Bobbi Gibb, who was originally from Massachusetts, came all the way from California where she was then living, thinking she could do that. She borrowed a pair of her brother's shorts, hid behind a bush at the front and ran in, getting great support from all the runners and not really being noticed. And she was the female champion for three years in an era before women were recognized as runners. And then it was, it might have been all the way up to 1971, when women were, I forget the year exactly, '69, ' 70, when women were recognized as appropriate competitors and could be entered in the race.

Don: And what about the international aspect to it? Has it always, at least as far back as you've been involved with it, attracted international runners? 

Tom: It's gone back a long way. The real advent of international champions began to appear probably in the 1940s just after World War II. A borderline starving Greek came over to call attention to the plight of Greeks who were suffering in the aftermath of World War II, Stylianos Kyriakides, and Kyriakides won the race. And then the BAA began accepting Japanese runners who were not accepted to anything in the U.S. in those days in the wake of the war. And then with the Boston Marathon being seen as the oldest continuously run, annually conducted marathon in the world, more and more runners came from overseas. So there would be more international champions than domestic ones. 

Don: I want to get in a couple of minutes to the issue of what happened in 2013. But before I do let's flesh out a little more about the BAA. I know the BAA has a charitable mission and it has expanded into a number of areas besides the Boston Marathon since the beginning of your involvement. I'm not suggesting you're the one necessarily all by yourself who made that happen.

Tom: Far from it.

Don: But tell us a little bit about the BAA. What does the BAA do today? What are the things that it wasn't doing in 1978 that it does now in 2024? 

Tom: Let's go back to 1887 and mission. The mission of the BAA since 1887 is really unchanged: to promote health and wellness. The words have changed a little bit. The phrase about "manly sports" has been cast aside. But that's really been it. And simply having the Boston Marathon is something that people aspire to, has been very helpful that way. It moves them into a healthier lifestyle. 

The Boston Marathon, outside of the Olympic Games, is the only marathon in the world that you have to qualify to run in. So people have to meet a particular qualifying standard appropriate to their age and gender. That's very difficult. If you meet it, you're in about the top 12 percent of runners in your age and gender in the whole world. And so that has made the Boston Marathon in some ways the most aspirational event for a great many people. Just to qualify sets you apart from almost everybody else.

It is sometimes said that the hardest part of the Boston Marathon is getting in. And that's about 84 percent of the field. The balance of the field is predominantly charity runners. And there are times when people who have qualified for the Boston Marathon but still couldn't get in because there wasn't room will complain about the fact that there are charity runners in there.

The field size for the Boston Marathon is limited by the cities and towns along the way who, as we noted a moment ago, own the roads. And they want to get their towns back. It has happened on a number of occasions in recent years that even people who met the qualifying standards couldn't get in because there wasn't room for them. And they will sometimes complain that there shouldn't be charity runners there. The charity runners do certainly advance the mission of the BAA because the people who are doing it are trying to help the world be a little bit better. And a great deal of it is focused on health and wellness. 

Don: When you talk about charity runners, you're talking about runners who are raising money for charity?

Tom: Who are raising money for charity. Who are required by BAA rules each to raise at least $5,000. And in recent years, the average amount raised by charity runners has come to exceed $10,000. And for them, the challenge is at least as daunting because they not only have to train and get ready to run 26 miles, 42 kilometers, over hill and dale in what can be very challenging weather circumstances, but they also have to hit up everybody they ever knew for money. 

So, they are putting an enormous amount of effort into what they do. And there's a small, a few percent of the field where entrants are determined by, say, the cities and towns through which the marathon goes, or some spots given to charities, or given to sponsors rather, people who enable the whole thing to go forward. But the vast majority of people who run are either qualified runners or running for charity.

Don: There's also a wheelchair race?

Tom: Yeah. Start with wheelchairs. The first wheelchair competitor was a guy named Bob Hall from Belmont, Massachusetts. And back in 1975, the then head of the BAA, Will Cloney, who was the president, board chair, as it were, told Bob that if he could cover the marathon distance in three hours, the then qualifying time, he could compete in his wheelchair.

And he did. And so he began what was thought of for a long time as the wheelchair division, but has ultimately led now to a series of para athletic competitive divisions that are in the Boston Marathon, I think in greater array than any other major marathon in the world. So that there are now competitors who are in wheelchairs but also who compete across a variety of other categories of para athletic competition for people with upper body impairments, lower body impairments, intellectual impairment, a series of categories, a number of which now also pay prize money to them.

And the BAA in the last couple of years, and I've been out of it for two years now almost, the BAA continues to make advances in its support for competitors in the para athletic world. We brought on a woman some years back now, Marla Runyon, a visually impaired runner, who was Paralympic gold medalist, placed fifth just running all by herself in New York, placed very highly in the Boston Marathon, and then went on to work in the area of support for people who are visually impaired. And then came to work for us and was a leader in helping us understand how a better job could be done. And the people in charge of the BAA now, starting with Jack Fleming, who was the President and CEO, continue to advance work in that area.

Of the six Abbott World Marathon Majors events, the six largest mass participation elite marathons in the world, which is Boston, New York, London, Chicago, Berlin, and Tokyo, all have solid commitments to that along with Boston, London, and New York also lead the way in doing that sort of thing. It has become an important feature in these races. But for the BAA, mission congruent with the notion of promoting health and fitness. 

But in a way, no less, important for the BAA are advances in community support. 

Don: Right.

Tom: The BAA conducts the Boston Marathon and in recent years, led by initially Frank Porter, who was BAA President and since then others, there's a so-called distance medley, which includes a five kilometer race, a 10 kilometer race, and a half marathon race every year, that take place, 5k in the springtime, 10k at the very early summer, and the half marathon in the fall, which is a stepping stone approach to getting up to a longer distance.

But even with that, all of those races tend to congregate either in Copley Square in the Back Bay in Boston or around Boston Common, all of which are pretty White places. We didn't have a whole lot for people who didn't look like the people who tended to run in our races. And as we expanded, we were very focused on the idea of devoting much more of what the BAA did to our mission.

When I was privileged to take over in the role of CEO, Executive Director as it was first called, first thing I did was spend two days with the then staff of maybe 10 or 12 full-time equivalents, just talking about mission. Did we the staff agree on what it was and how we should pursue it? 

Don: You told me about that when we talked earlier, and what an important way to start your job there. This is an organization that does have a mission. It has a charitable mission. And just to make sure everybody's on the same page about what that means before you start investing a lot of time working with these people, who may have different ideas of what the organization really is or should be about.

Tom: Yeah, and those things are important in a couple of ways. One is simply setting corporate direction, and the Board of Governors was always in support of that as we would talk about it. But it also is an important, call it leadership activity, to have everybody pointed broadly in the same direction.

But as we looked at it back then, if we were really going to significantly expand what we did in that area, we were going to need to do more with more people, with more assets. And I had set about prior to that, while I was still the President, the Board Chair, to work on increasing the amount of financial assets that we had, what were then called unrestricted net assets. What people now would recognize as net assets without donor restriction. And we accumulated funds to the point where, between the late 2000s and a couple of years ago, the amount of such funds had gone up about tenfold. 

So there were financial assets, and then you need people.

So we were able, again, with the support of the Board of Governors, to enhance the size of the staff up to about 30 people two years ago, and now it's approaching 40. So there are people who can do that work and they are the BAA outputs on lots of programs in neighborhoods for people in Franklin Park and East Boston and other places around Boston, sometimes in conjunction with other, usually healthcare institutions to advance health and wellness generally in the community.

And it became easy to see. We'd go out, say, to up to the Dimock Center, a healthcare center in Roxbury, or out to the Reggie Lewis Center, the indoor track facility in Boston, and first have a conversation led by community leaders, healthcare professionals, about good exercise habits, good nutrition, and have somebody out there who would otherwise be well known to people.

So Teddy Bruschi would play a big role in that. Teddy Bruschi, who was a very solid professional football player for the New England Patriots, now appears on ESPN, and a stroke survivor. And we could look out one side of the building into Roxbury where there was a life expectancy for people in the 50s somewhere. Look out the other side of the building down toward the Back Bay and Beacon Hill, where it was more like 80 or 90. 

Don: And Roxbury, at least the portion of Roxbury you were talking about, was predominantly and is predominantly a Black community. 

Tom: Yes, indeed. Yep. 

And so we learned from doing all of that. When the pandemic came, I think all of our other peer organizations in Abbott World Marathon Majors quite sensibly laid off half or more of their staff because there were no events. We did something different. We kept the whole staff on at full salary and focused very heavily on community engagement. Community service. What can we do? And go out and talk to people. Not to tell them all the good things we were going to do but to learn about the things that we probably ought to do. 

Don: Yeah, what a great idea. 

Tom: And the fruits of all of that work are really paying off now. If you were to inventory everything done by the BAA in the area of community engagement you would be very impressed.

Don: And I guess one more question about that is, there are also youth programs. And I don't know If that was included in what you were just describing, or if there were other specific programs for youth? 

Tom: It was youth programs that led the way. During Marathon Weekend, we'd have some activities for kids down around the Boston Common. And there would be, out in Copley Square on Boston Marathon Weekend on Sunday afternoon, relay races for schools from all around Boston and somewhat outside, all put on by BAA staff member Suzanne Walmsley, who remains there and is driving a lot of this stuff to this day. Suzanne, an All-American track performer at Harvard. She was the one who did that for quite a while. And then as activity in that area increased, now there are more people who are doing that. Suzanne played a strong role in leading that as did Marla Runyon, who I mentioned before. 

Don: So am I right in understanding that some of these changes, the expansion of the mission playing out in Boston, happened when you were still a volunteer for the organization, and then some of them happened after you the became full time?

Tom: The great increases, just in the last few years. 

Don: Okay. So that was when you were there as President?

Tom: When I was in charge day to day. The commitment was made early. but one needed the resources to really bring it all to life, which we were able to begin to do in a serious way a few years ago. And which Jack Fleming and others are greatly advancing now.

Don: So that was also a significant part of your legacy as head of the organization. 

Tom: It was an important part of what I was doing, yeah. It's truly what I was doing there. That's what I wanted to see. The BAA really live out its mission and to help have the resources available to enable that. It's one thing to have a nice thought, but then you've got to have the resources available to do it. And now that the resources are there, and the commitment is there, that work will continue to expand, I'm sure. 

Don: So now, you began your full time role in 2011 at the BAA. 

Tom: I did. 

Don: And had a couple of marathons under your belt before 2013, or just one at that point?

Tom: Two of them. 2011, I had been on the job for probably all of 15 weeks or something when that one took place. Which was a magnificent day, a world best time was run. I was struggling to find a way to take credit for it, but there was simply no basis for it. 

Don: And you wrote an article for Boston Magazine last year, marking the 10th anniversary of the bombing year. And I think you quoted something that Mayor Menino had said to you about the Boston Marathon day. 

Tom: Well, Mayor Menino would say to many people, I happened to be around once in a while, that it was always the best day in the City of Boston. Everybody enjoyed it. It was a day of joy for all.

Don: Yeah. I think for people who don't live in Massachusetts, we'd probably need to explain that Patriot's Day is the state holiday when the Boston Marathon is run. So all state offices, all schools are closed on that day. There's a Boston Red Sox game that I think starts at 11 a.m. or something like that at Fenway Park every year, a home game. And then the Boston Marathon begins in Hopkinton. What time does the race start? It starts before the Red Sox game, right? 

Tom: It does. And of course there are lots of starts, particularly with the various para divisions. But things really get going at about 9:30. Wheelchairs get going. It used to be that the women would start first, so that they would have a clear place to run. Now the men start first so they're not catching up to the women. The dynamics of all of that, the flow dynamics of it, are fascinating. It's an exercise in fluid dynamics. Orchestrated by people who know much more about liquids than they do human beings, and then translate it over.

It's a holiday here. It's less and less of a holiday these days. Schools are closed, government is closed, but more and more businesses are open. But, with the history of the race, the Boston Marathon goes back to the 1890s. 1897 was the first one. And people, families, had been coming out to support it for all of those decades, for 128 years now or something. And that tradition is an enormous part of what makes the Boston Marathon special. Families have come out to the same place on the course forever to cheer, to support their runners, to just have fun. It's often the opening day of spring for a great many people. Flowers are coming out. There's not quite leaves on the trees, which is too bad on a hot day. And they also come out because they have a kind of a proprietary sense for it. It's their event and they come out to support their runners on their course, which they have made available for the day. And they've always done things to help.

If it's a hot day then if you're a runner, now there are fluids available along the way and lots of support for that, but still, families are out there providing water or enhanced drinks or frozen beverages, frozen things, orange slices. Little kids have a great time bringing stuff out to everybody. Everybody enjoys feeling as though they are participants in the race. If a runner is having trouble, people are encouraging in the strongest way they possibly can. Even if they're not having trouble, people enjoy encouraging them. Runners, all of us, encourage runners to write their name on their shirt or their race bib so people will know to say, "Hey Don, way to go! Looking good!" There was a little TED talk I did some years ago now and the title and the theme of it were "In Boston, everyone owns the Marathon." And people very much have that sense. And it just brings them out in droves. 

And some of the places are famous for it. At Wellesley College, an esteemed women's institution of higher learning, at just about the halfway point, the women of Wellesley come out in enormous numbers and create what's known as the "Scream Tunnel," and some magnificently profane signs to go along with it. Such that for the likes of me, it was always pretty much the fastest mile. You wanted to look good there, even though you didn't. 

And then, as people come down the course, all of that continues all along the way. Boston College gets pretty darn noisy. But in a nice way. 

And then for runners, they enjoy that. They are thrilled in many cases by the fact that they're even there. "I got into the Boston Marathon!" It's a huge, big deal for people. 

But when I'm asked for advice by runners who are coming for the first time, I will tell them that, "Unless you think you're going to win, which is, generally improbable, or set a personal best time, which is also improbable, save some energy for the end. Make sure that you're coherent when you come down to what is famously referred to as “Right on Hereford and Left on Boylston Street.” That is to say, make the last right turn up toward the finish line, up an annoying little hill, and then left turn on Boylston Street, which is where the finish line is, some 634 yards away. So that when you make that turn, you get to experience the thousands and thousands of people who are out on that street. And what is by then a throbbing urban canyon of people who are cheering just for you. 

All the other major marathons finish in a park. They tend to spend more time in the city than the Boston Marathon does. But then you get to Central Park in New York, or Hibiya Park in Tokyo, or Buckingham Palace in London, or the big park in Chicago where they finish there, after you go through the city, the noise at the finish, it dissipates a little bit. But when you run down Boylston Street, it echoes and resounds and pounds powerfully. It is quite the most thrilling thing. And the spectators who were there are there for a reason. Because they know that they can do that for people. And they enjoy seeing the reactions. 

Don: I can't think of an event in Boston that does more than the Boston Marathon of just bringing people together. People in the city. People in the suburbs along the route of the city. It's just such a joyful event. I've been there several times, not running, watching people run, and it's just something that I think Boston has always been and always will be very proud of. And you should be very proud of having been associated with it and leading it for so long. 

Tom: Oh, great to be able to do. And one part of the role of being leader is: don't screw it all up. It's like the original Mercury astronauts who sat on the top of a rocket. Their first thought was, "Dear Lord, please don't let me goof this all up."

Don: That's a good transition into talking about what happened in 2013, because as bad as that event was, and it was horrible, it actually could have been a lot worse except people like you, and you in particular I imagine, who were thinking don't screw it up, were also thinking, how do we make sure we're prepared for the worst? And I doubt that anybody would disagree with this, that ended up saving a lot of lives. 

You didn't know there was going to be a bombing. You didn't know anything bad was going to happen. What was the day like when the day started? Was this another like 2011 where it was a nice sunny, beautiful day? 

Tom: It was as good as days get for running a marathon. It was that rare combination of being a wonderful day to watch, it was sunny and pleasant, but also a good day to run because it wasn't real hot.

So there were lots and lots of people out there. And by the time the bombing happened at 2:49 in the afternoon, 84- 85 percent of the field had already finished. So it was party time on Boylston Street at the Boston Marathon. 

Don: So everybody was having a great day. And then where were you when you got the news about the bombs? 

Tom: I had just gone inside. That was my last year as being also a finish line announcer. And in doing that I would later be responsible for conducting an award ceremony for all the various award winners, and that would be conducted inside the Copley Plaza Hotel, which was the headquarters. So I would take a break in announcing and go in and just check and make sure that we had the data, all the information in the right places so that the award ceremony could go smoothly. 

So I went in to do that. And while I was inside, down in the bowels of the building, where we had all the computers, the explosions took place. I didn't even know it happened. And when I tried to go back outside somebody said, "Hey, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but here's what happened." 

Don: Do I remember correctly, there were two bombs that went off? 

Tom: There were. Yeah. 

Don: And that was very close to the finish line. 

Tom: One was quite close to the finish line. That was down by the Marathon Sports Store. That was, I don't know, 30 yards or something from the finish. And the other one was up at the Forum Restaurant about a block and a half, two blocks up the road as runners were coming down. 

Don: So when you were told that there had been a bombing, what did you do? 

Tom: I tried to go outside, but I couldn't do that.

Don: Because people wouldn't let you go outside. 

Tom: That's right. Yeah. The police were trying to get people out of there, and they certainly didn't want anyone else coming in. Who knew what could happen? There were two explosions. Would there be three? Five? Ten? So people had to be stopped from going in. Cell phone service had to be turned off so there could not be a remote detonation.

Don: Yeah, and that's a point I think as we go through this for people to remember. That we now know in retrospect that there were two bombs. At the time, you didn't know how many bombs there were. You may have known that two had gone off, but you didn't know if there were going to be more.

Tom: It was scarier yet because the police were then and the federal government, FBI people, were rapidly scrutinizing the area to find backpacks that had been left behind, that were just sitting there. And in some cases, if they were sufficiently suspicious, those would be exploded. So there was still the sound of explosions going on, even though they weren't terrorist bombs. It was quite an atmosphere. 

Don: So tell us what happened. After the bombs went off, what was happening outside? I know you might not have been an eyewitness to all of this, but you certainly know now. 

Tom: I'll describe what happened, but what happened was in large part, the result of a great deal of preparation that had gone on beforehand.

There had always been a great deal of, over the previous decade, a great deal of preparation for dealing with security around the Boston Marathon, particularly the finish line, coordinated by the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, MEMA, which has its headquarters out in Framingham, Massachusetts, about a third of the way down the marathon course. And at those meetings, there would be a gathering of all public safety and medical groups that might need to be involved. So you'd have police, fire, EMS from each of the eight cities and towns along the way, state police, various other state agencies. 

There would be at least one representative of all of the federal agencies that would be involved every year, which would include the FBI, Homeland Security, the Secret Service, the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Guard, which would be involved.There would be hundreds of federal people who got involved, and on the order of a couple of thousand others, various kinds of law enforcement people who you saw or didn't see. The EMS, emergency medical services personnel from all of the various areas. So that people could be ready. 

In the two years that I was on board before the explosions of 2013, we had two 24 hour, what sounded like live fire exercises to prepare for catastrophe at the Boston Marathon, whether it was gunfire, could've been bombs, could've been smoke, could've been explosions from beneath the road, a gas explosion or something, involving all of the public safety agencies, the emergency medical people, and the six to eight really Level One trauma centers in the area in and around Boston, many of which were quite close to the finish area.

So that when those things were done, the preparation was not only for law enforcement, to respond. And you would hear rifle shots going off and people running all over the place. But there would also be ambulances screaming all around. The residents were terrified. They would call city hall and ask the mayor's office what in the world is going on.

But it was to be ready in case something happened, right up to including preparations for how injury victims would be distributed in the event that something happened. And a whole lot of planning went on. The head of Boston EMS, he's still the head of the Boston EMS group, Jimmy Hooley, put it really well after the bombing when he was describing all the preparation. He said, “Preparation, rehearsal, planning, gets a little tedious, repetitive, gets a little boring, until you see what happens in the real world." And what happened in the real world, the saving of lives, was a testament to all of the preparation work done by all of those organizations. 

What happened when the bombs went off? It was horrible, of course. Three people died immediately, and hundreds of others were injured, many of them horribly. But just as a broad statistic, apart from the three people who we so tragically lost that day, everyone else survived. The 30 most seriously injured people were at a hospital operating room within 18 minutes. All of the most seriously injured people were at the hospital within 47 minutes because of the preparation work that they had all done. So as people were moved into the medical tent, they were immediately triaged, brought up to the other end of the medical tent where the ambulances were. With the race being pleasant and having very few medical problems, there were maybe 16 or 17 ambulances staged. When the bombs went off, that number went up to 73. 

Don: And you had a number of hospitals who were actually ready in case they needed to treat people. 

Tom: Because they had prepared in conjunction with everybody else. So that when the injured people got to the ambulance and to the medical tent, there were a couple of people there who were responsible for allocating them to the right hospital that could provide the treatment they needed and had not been overwhelmed by other injured people. It was as efficient as one can imagine. When I describe this at other marathons, people are slack-jawed at how well that went because of all the work that they did.

Don: So that's one important piece of it. So you had EMTs, you had hospitals, you had ambulance drivers, you had all the emergency response people prepared through all the training and preparation and planning that had been done. But the other element of it that you couldn't have prepared for are the strangers who just came in and helped to save people's lives. Can you talk about that? 

Tom: Sure. And that we couldn't have counted on. 

The short answer to that is, of course, you never know what people will do. But in a minute, I'll come back to something else where a whole lot of work went into having as many people as engaged as they could be, because someday you might need their help. 

When the bombing took place, the two explosions took place outside the area that we, in quotes, controlled. The finish line lies between the Boston Public Library, this magnificent Beaux-Arts building from the 1890s on one side of Boylston Street, and a bunch of stores and regular commercial businesses that run down the other side of the street with a sidewalk in front of them.

The city had always wanted to have the sidewalk on the stores side of the street open so people could walk around, get where they wanted to go. Made perfect sense. And there were barricades, like snow fencing type barricades, along that side of Boylston Street to prevent people from jumping out into the race. The other side of the street was taken up with grandstands where people watched. And there were barricades on that side too. 

So the area that we controlled is what I would refer to as between the curb stones, with plenty of police out there too. But the sidewalk was meant to be open. 

The two bombs were set off on the sidewalk, so they were on the other side of the crowd-control barrier. So one of the first problems was that even with EMS people sprinting out of the medical tent to get to injured people, to some extent they couldn't do it instantly because those barricades had to come down. So some of the first assistance, the initial first aid that was required, was going to have to come from people on the sidewalk.

And they did. People inside of stores, the manager of Marathon Sports, Shane O'Hara, suddenly having to set up almost a field reception center inside the store. You had people finishing the race as the explosions took place and running back to help, some of whom we still see. Rob Wheeler, who was a guy who didn't know he was running until the night before, had never really had a good home, but felt a responsibility to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for having looked after him. He ran back. Colonel Everett Spain, a Purple Heart, Bronze Star recipient from the battlefield, Afghanistan, had just guided a blind runner across the finish line. He thought, "I got to do what soldiers do." He turned and ran back. 

And there were a lot of those people who stepped in to do something, even as police were telling everybody quite sensibly, "Get out of here. Now. Go. We don't know what else could happen." Some people went back and did that. And if they hadn't, then the survival rate, in all probability, would have been much lower because it took a minute or two for people to just tear down those barricades.

We were talking before about how people have a sense of ownership for the marathon and the runners who are there, and that's gone on forever. Nobody takes credit for that, other than the runners who come and do it and give people something to cheer about. But at the same time, for those of us at the BAA and those of us who put on similar events elsewhere, a really important part of our job is engagement with all of the various constituencies that are involved.

First, just cities and towns and the people who live there because we're using their streets. But then as much as possible engaging with all of the volunteers, all of the people who come down as spectators, to make them feel as special as possible, to have them continue and deepen their sense of owning the event. Because if something happens some of them will, perhaps irrationally, jump in and help. And they did. 

If I had to plot the time that I spent at the at the BAA, the single greatest area of activity may have been just outside engagement, going to events all over the place all the time just to express both a sense of gratitude, and a sense of connection with all of the constituencies that we connect with. And those people probably would have done everything they did anyway, but one feels the need to do all one can to deepen that. 

Don: Oh, I think that's a wonderful lesson to learn really for any organization. Being engaged in your community and really having the support of your community through the work you do to foster that support. 

This was really a horrific, extraordinary event, one that nobody expected, even though you had planned for a bad event. And you had a combination of people who were part of that planning and part of the emergency response to the unanticipated event. And then you had other people joining who just were there and were willing to put themselves at risk, because they too didn't know if there were other bombs. And they didn't know what they were running into when they chose to do that. But they wanted to help. 

I think that's just a remarkable story about the decency of many people in this community and anywhere in the world, that there are people who will be willing to sacrifice their own potential safety to help other people who need the help. 

Tom: Sure. The planning was conducted in that spirit and very much by all of the people that I'm describing, led by the Mass Emergency Management Agency, Kurt Schwartz, who was running that, but all these other agencies that got together to work it out themselves. Certainly we didn't tell them how to do those things. We don't know how to do those things. We would just as much as possible engage and support them in doing that. 

And one of the interesting phenomena in all of that is if you watch enough TV police shows, that there is no love lost among the various levels of law enforcement. That city people don't like the state people nosing in, and the state people don't want the feds nosing in, and the feds don't trust all those other people. Nothing could be further from the truth. In my experience over two decades, everybody who would come to those meetings at the Mass Emergency Management Agency was only looking for ways to help. There was never a whiff of interagency rivalry or any of that, including on the day of the bombing. Everybody was working together and coming to help us. 

Ed Davis, who was then the Boston Police Commissioner. A little later that night, I'm walking around in a bunny suit in the crime scene just to see what's going on. I didn't even know him. He comes over and says "Hey, Tom. Whatever you need." I said " Thank you sir. That's very kind." "No, listen. Whatever you need." 

And right after that it was Jeff Sallet from the FBI who was conducting the investigation when they took all of everything they found over to the Seaport into a big pier building there, offering the same sort of support. And they worked that way with one another.

The collaboration across agencies, among people, and then all the hospitals, no rivalry among hospitals. They drove all of that stuff. They saved a lot of lives. 

Don: We focused on the emergency response and triaging the people who had been injured. But, another very important part of that was the law enforcement piece that took place afterwards. If I remember right, and I'm just doing this by memory Tom, so correct me if I'm wrong, it took maybe two days for the surviving person who was ultimately convicted of the bombing to be apprehended. Is that right? Was it two days? 

Tom: It was about five days. 

Don: Oh, that much. Okay. And so, for people again who weren't in Boston at the time, the city was basically locked down. People were encouraged to stay in their homes and not walk around the city of Boston because nobody knew where these people were.

Tom: Yeah. There was a lot of work being done by the FBI, state police, local law enforcement in Boston to try to identify the killers. And about three days into that the FBI then thought they had a pretty good line into who it was. So on that, what, Thursday night, Friday, after the Monday bombing, the mayor and the governor put out a statement saying, "We want everybody to stay home. Everybody, lock down. Don't go out. We want to be able to catch these people." And for people who've grown up around Boston, you would know that, for a great many people, if the mayor or the governor said, "We want you to stay home," the reaction might not be terribly favorable.

Don: But this was an extraordinary event. 

Tom: And nobody went anywhere. Nobody. It was stunning. 

Don: I remember it well because I had a son who was living in Boston and he stayed home. And I had another son who was living out in Marlboro, and I went out and connected with him because people were allowed to move around that far out of the city. But I just remember how frightening it was and suspenseful. 

But my point of raising that was just to say that, you've mentioned all the different agencies that were there on the day of the bombing, at the time of the bombing, who were rendering all the health care assistance, but law enforcement also played a very important role and did a wonderful job, I think, for the city.

Tom: Oh, everybody. Because everyone was prepared. If there was a lesson that came out of that at a very high level in the context of leadership, it is that there is heroism in preparedness. 

Don: And I know, I think it might have been the day after the bombing or shortly thereafter, President Obama came to Boston and Governor Patrick joined him for an interfaith service. I guess that must've been a few days later. And you were there for that. Do you want to just say a few words about that? 

Tom: Yes. I think it was Governor Patrick who collaborated with President Obama. They thought it would be good to have an interfaith service as you properly describe it. It was conducted at the Holy Cross Cathedral in the South End of Boston, which is a great big cathedral. And it looks like what your mind's eye would tell you. 

And a great many people, of course, wanted to attend. Only so many people could get in there. President Obama and Mrs. Obama wanted to meet some of the volunteers. And so they were gathered in the adjacent gymnasium of Cathedral High School. But one could only be in the cathedral or in the gymnasium. You couldn't do both. And so with one other member, I think, of the BAA board, it was pretty clear to me where I belonged. And I was down in the gymnasium with the volunteers as we watched the service going on next door on TV. 

And then the President came down, along with Mrs. Obama, to meet some of the volunteers. And we had them arrayed in a large semicircle across the entirety of the gymnasium with either yellow jackets, which were the colors of the volunteer jackets that year, or white if they were medical volunteers. And the President went around and spoke to all of them.

At one point, Governor Patrick came over to me and said "Now, Tom, you know the President, right?" And I had to say "Actually, no. Not this one or any other, for that matter." And so when it was all done the Governor brought the President over. And he spoke to me and said, I'm sure very nice things. I know they were very nice things, but I couldn't tell you then or now what the words were. But I know exactly what I said to him, which was "Mr. President, it is the privilege of a lifetime to lead this organization. The people you just met, the volunteers in the yellow and the white volunteer jackets. We had to issue new ones to many of them this morning because the ones that they wore on Monday are too bloody.”

And with that, it gives you a pretty profound sense of pride in living where you do amongst people in a community that behaved that way. 

Don: And you would hope that would happen in other communities too, not to diminish the pride we should have in Boston for the wonderful work that happened. 

And I know there's so much more that people could talk about. The lives of a number of people, some were ended and shattered and some were disrupted for long periods of time. I want to remember that and remember those people. It is inspiring to hear how people came together, both the professionals and the people that just happen to be in the right place at the right time to help save lives and help people through their suffering.

Tom, this was really very interesting, fascinating conversation. I guess I would end it just by asking, do you have any advice for people who maybe want to make a transition from being in the for-profit world to the not-for-profit world, or maybe who want to get involved in community athletics or anything. A wide open question for you. If there's a few last words for this episode that you'd like to impart, now's your chance. 

Tom: In terms, once again, of probability of success, if you focus on the things that you enjoy doing -- not, it's fun to go to the beach or go play golf or something, not that -- but things that you find personally interesting and satisfying, follow it up to the extent that you can. All of us have to make money to support ourselves and families and that sort of thing. But the more you go toward things that you like doing and that you feel good about doing, the more likely you are to run into things that are good for you. 

For most of us, whatever path we set out, we can be pretty sure that something else is going to happen. There'll be things along the way that bump us one way or the other. If you find things that you like doing, that make you feel good, even if they're hard -- and sometimes you feel better about achieving something that's difficult than you do something that's easy, so I'm not talking about something that's simple, but something that you find engaging and where success in that leaves you feeling fulfilled -- go do it. Which can be pretty hard sometimes because certainly there are a great many people who have followed lives of public service who wind up with a level of frustration because you can't fix everything. And it tends not to be all that economically rewarding. But there are ways that one can follow that sort of personal interest that don't have to lead to frustration. Whatever you like is probably the best way to go. 

Don: Great words to end on Tom. 

Tom, thank you very much for your time. This was a lot of fun. It was great to reconnect with you. And I'm glad our listeners will have a chance to hear from you about everything we covered in this episode. 

Tom: Fun for me too, Don. Thank you. I enjoyed it very much. 

Don: You take care. 

Tom: Okay. So long.